this might be a  stupid question, but do you have to process the image in order to export it? (I only know ACR which is basically the same at LR).

You don't have to do anything in LR - but it's doing a RAW conversion (based on settings and preferences) to a JPEG of the size, compression and in the color space you specify, so LR is doing some processing even if the user doesn't.

This sounds like a profile mismatch issue or an uncalibrated monitor - did the OP ever get things figured out?

For on demand sales there are two price tiers, based on size

As is the way of such things, I just saw an iStock ad on a technology blog page on nbc.com - so there are some

If you look at the ad though, audio and video contributors might not be too pleased about offering only photos or illustrations

Pretty good month so far; RPD-wise.
Carefully measuring my comments.  Don't want to jinx my search position. 
 

This is a good month at DT - looking at the June 2011 to date period, it's a best month. I would note that it's not my BME at DT though. November 2006 was when my RPD was half what it is now. The month isn't over yet, but right now November 2006 is 18% higher than November 2012 from DT in total $$.

I've said before, but I think it bears repeating. It's the total from your portfolio at the end of the month that matters, not the RPD.

Actually I got a reply from Lobo who said he would prefer I wait until December to start that thread. He said there is just to much on the plate to take this on as well. I agree, there are a lot of issues on the plate so I will refrain from starting one at all. HQ dosen't listen or respond anyway.

They've got too much on their plate right now? And why would that be? I really like Chris but his Lobo alter ego I could strangle (and not just because he banned me from the forums).

This reminds me of one of my all time favorite examples of non-service in a restaurant (which was in the UK, where I was on a visit to see family). I asked for tea and was told that the kitchen was too busy to do that. I should have realized the meal would be sub-par (which it was). Sometimes businesses forget why they exist at all - and often that lead to them going away in time.

However I agree with you that it's pointless to talk about it in the forums. If I were to guess an answer, it would be that Getty is trying to control costs and wants to advertise itself as a whole not iStock in particular. When it does spend, it's for things it's actively trying to grow - I see Thinkstock ads quite a bit

...My Istock download numbers are now about 1/3 of the PP ones, so yes, they've been very successful at migrating buyers from higher cost Istock site to dirt cheap Thinkstock.  Still don't understand the motivation there. ...

If you want to to be the amazon.com of stock images/video/etc then you don't want SS around. You can see that SS has found a nice niche of the market in which you don't compete so you'd like to be top dog there too.

You have a bunch of wholly owned stuff which is a bit long in the tooth and doesn't sell for high prices. You don't think much of the bulk of the iStock collection (Getty's attitude, as expressed by Jonathan Klein, has been disparaging and dismissive all along) so you cherry pick the bits you want to move to your main high price site but you use the rest to act as window dressing in your new SS-wannabe site. You take a bit of a hit in short term revenue, but this is about gaining control of that market segment over time. Once you gain control (I'm not convinced they will succeed, but I'm sure they are) then you can shift prices around as you see fit, but you have the high end (Getty Images) and low end (Thinkstock) largely to yourself (Corbis doesn't count).

One think I can't fathom is why they made a new name - Thinkstock - versus using the best stock image web site ever, that they owned after buying Jupiter. photos.com. Perhaps they wanted to avoid being tied to one medium (Getty bought PumpAudio and has ambitions to be video/audio/still image intergalactic emperor).

I pay no attention to views so I have no idea if they've fixed that. If it's relevant to best match placement, then it's an issue. Otherwise I'd rather they worked on all the bugs that impede buyers and affect accurate recording of sales/royalties

I'm nearly 18 months into my return to being indie and things are looking pretty good - with the exception of iStock's sales. They are my second agency in monthly $$, so I'd rather they didn't implode. November isn't quite over yet, but I'm up 30% up over last November and within striking distance (but I doubt I'll make it without some lucky ELs) of my all time high of November 2010.

Keywords in the IPTC and generic (versus tailored to iStock's CV) would be general advice about something that can trip people up when submitting to multiple sites. As you do vectors, figuring out each site's vector submission rules (much less homogenous than for images) in advance would probably make sense too.

Thanks for the answers.

There's no calculator that I see for RF sales - just a list of prices based on size. The sale for $200 represents a 37% discount on the "list" price, which is a pretty hefty whack. When you combine big discounts with long waits for balances to clear, it does take some of the fun out the whole process

The only other observation is that I have no idea what possible value the chart that shows you your "zooms" is. I don't think anything I've sold this year has ever shown up as a zoom. As long as there are sales, I don't much care, but someone must have thought people zooming images meant something.

Hit and miss depends on what you're aiming at

I'm already over the target to keep my current percentage but that was a drop from 18% last year. As this year's RC total looks as if it will be lower than 2011's, my trend line is the same as yours, albeit with smaller numbers

The good news for indies is that a 1% royalty rate change isn't as big a punch in the gut as the 5% increments for exclusives. We should probably be urging the merger with Getty rates as 20% would be an increase for all but one of us indies

doesn't the taking our jpegs and turning them into TIFFs kinda fly in the face of image quality? Why not ask us to upsize our own files and provide them in whatever format they want?

You'd think, but SS, DT and 123rf all do it. I think it's that some of the old fashioned buyers think they want TIFFs and rather than argue the toss with them, the sites give them what they want. Logistically, contacting us for custom items wouldn't work well, IMO.

Once, having us upload TIFFs would have been impossible given bandwidth and speed issues. Today it wouldn't be such a problem and I wouldn't mind doing it if sites offered the option.

And on the cheap credits issue I mentioned above, 123rf contacted me via email to confirm which file I was talking about and said they'll look into it. I'll post when they let me know the story.

This morning's check had an XL sale (5 credits) with 31 cents royalty to me. At 50% that means the buyer paid 12.4 cents a credit! I assume it's one of their recent promotions - but those are ridiculous numbers. I make more for an XS at PhotoDune (often talked about as a low price site) than I did for an XL here. Even a sub at 123rf would have made 36 cents.

It's a good month (BME) there, but virtually giving away my XL images just ticks me off. They can pay for promotional expenses from their 50%, not mine.

Bah humbug!

30 days.

You can read about this on IS. Note that once you start the 30 day clock, if you change your mind, you need to wait 90 days to return to exclusivity. So don't start the clock until you're sure.